wall

any of various permanent upright constructions having a length much greater than the thickness and presenting a continuous surface except where pierced by doors, windows, etc.: used for shelter, protection, or privacy, or to subdivide interior space, to support floors, roofs, or the like, to retain earth, to fence in an area, etc.

Usually walls.a rampart raised for defensive purposes.

an immaterial or intangible barrier, obstruction, etc., suggesting a wall: a wall of prejudice.

a wall-like, enclosing part, thing, mass, etc.: a wall of fire; a wall of troops.

an embankment to prevent flooding, as a levee or sea wall.

the outermost film or layer of structural material protecting, surrounding, and defining the physical limits of an object: the wall of a blood cell.

Soccer. a line of defenders standing shoulder to shoulder in an attempt to block a free kick with their bodies.

Word Origin and History for climb the walls

wall

v.

"to enclose in a wall," late Old English *weallian, from the source of wall (n.). Related: Walled; walling.

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wall

n.

Old English weall "rampart" (natural as well as man-made), also "defensive fortification around a city, side of a building, interior partition," an Anglo-Frisian and Saxon borrowing (cf. Old Saxon, Old Frisian, Middle Low German, Middle Dutch wal) from Latin vallum "wall, rampart, row or line of stakes," apparently a collective form of vallus "stake." Swedish vall, Danish val are from Low German.

In this case, English uses one word where many languages have two, e.g. German Mauer "outer wall of a town, fortress, etc.," used also in reference to the former Berlin Wall, and wand "partition wall within a building" (cf. the distinction, not always rigorously kept, in Italian muro/parete, Irish mur/fraig, Lithuanian muras/siena, etc.).

Phrase up the wall "angry, crazy" is from 1951; off the wall "unorthodox, unconventional" is recorded from 1966, American English student slang. Wall-to-wall (adj.) recorded 1953, of carpeting; metaphoric use (usually disparaging) is from 1967.

Idioms and Phrases with climb the walls

climb the walls

Show extreme frustration, impatience, or anxiety, as in That long, boring banquet made me want to climb the walls, or If he says that one more time I'll be ready to climb the walls. Although describing a military maneuver dating from ancient times, this slangy phrase has been used figuratively to express strong negative feeling only since about 1970. Also see under drive someone crazy.